Blood Crest
by Cauchy
Summary: The blood wards hid Harry Potter from those who wished to harm him. Unfortunately, foreign dark wizard Joachim Petri had no idea who Harry Potter even was. A wizard "rescues" a clueless Harry Potter from the Dursleys, but not all wizards are good people. Eventually Necromancer!Harry, Master of Death!Harry, no pairings.
1. Mudblood

Harry skulked about in a murky corner of the park, where a large oak tree with enormous, drooping limbs formed a makeshift tunnel. Usually, he found the shaded, secluded spot a brilliant hiding place because his cousin Dudley was afraid of the dark, and just because having a secret base was cool, but today he could not muster up any of his usual wonder.

He was nursing a shallow cut on his cheek and feeling generally miserable about it. Even the fact that Dudley had been reprimanded, probably for the first time in his dim, spoiled life, was not enough to cheer Harry up.

The cut itself was hardly the worst thing that had ever happened to him. It did not even hurt that much, to be honest, and was just bleeding a lot. The blood was part of the reason why it had not all been hushed up by Dudley and his gang; the teacher had seen it erupted like a volcano at the miniature whale.

Harry had thought that things were looking up, except that as soon they got home, Dudley cried some fake tears and made up a ridiculous fib about Harry somehow getting him in trouble. Despite the fact that _Harry_ was the one who had the giant bandage on his face, Aunt Petunia had bought Dudley's nonsense wholesale and had kicked Harry out of the house for the rest of the day. It was better than being locked up in the cupboard, but not by much, given how cold the autumn air was.

The sun crept lower on the horizon, and the embrace of the oak tree grew less comforting and more depressing as the surrounding illumination receded. Harry, seeing that the park was now deserted, cautiously ventured out of his secret base and stepped toward the swings. One of them was vandalised and completely unusable, the seat hanging at an awkward angle inches under the top bar, but the others were reasonably functional.

Harry winced as his too-large trainers crunched loudly on the wood chips. He didn't like the way the sound shattered the evening silence and seemed so much bigger than it actually was. He took another step, and there was an awful cracking sound like breaking glass. He looked down wildly to see what he had stepped on, except he could not find anything different. When he looked up again, he gave a yell and scrambled back quickly as he was met with the sight of the Grim Reaper.

Breathing in and out harshly, Harry regained his wits and noticed that the Grim Reaper was actually a man in a thick black cloak, and the hand that was poking out from under the rim was thin and pale but not exactly skeletal. He concluded, a little ashamed of his earlier reaction, that this was not the Grim Reaper, but just one of those "strange freaks" who sometimes bowed to him on the street and who Uncle Vernon loudly disapproved of.

Then the Not Grim Reaper reached out and grabbed his arm. Harry was so surprised that he just stood there and let it happen, except his arm apparently did not agree with that, because there was a flash of golden light and the cloaked man recoiled sharply like he had been burned, his hand disappearing into the folds of his cloak

"Er, excuse me," Harry tried saying, except his throat had clenched up some from the excitement and it came out a little more high-pitched than he would have preferred.

"Schlammblut!" the cloaked man hissed out in a surprisingly normal voice, except that the word he had said was complete nonsense. Harry got the idea that it was unflattering, however, just from the tone of voice.

"Excuse me?" Harry said again, this time managing to keep his voice steady. He felt his courage coming back to him every second that the man just stood there. He did wish that he could see the face under the hood, but that was kind of silly because he doubted he would recognise the person anyway. The adult men Harry knew consisted of Uncle Vernon and the school headmaster. Obviously, this person could not possibly be Uncle Vernon, and the thought of the uptight, moustached headmaster wearing such a freaky cloak was just too laughable.

"Are you a mudblood?" the man asked, thankfully in comprehensible English this time, except Harry still had no idea what a "mudblood" was other than that it was clearly not a good thing.

"Er, no?" Harry tried, because agreeing that he was some kind of bad thing was just dumb.

The man seemed surprised, though, and said, "Oh, my apologies. Why are you in this type of place, then? Where are your parents?"

Now that he spoke a longer sentence, Harry could hear a strange accent to the slow words. For one, the man seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter "w," which he found strange because it was a very essential sort of letter. Harry supposed that this was the type of "no-good foreigner" Uncle Vernon was always complaining about. And of course the man was also wearing a freaky cloak, which made it even worse. Harry decided that anyone Uncle Vernon would definitely hate couldn't be that bad, and decided to answer the questions.

"They're dead. I live here, with my aunt and uncle," he explained.

"They are our kind, and they live here?" the man demanded, sounding very incredulous. Harry looked the man up and down again, and wondered what he meant by "our kind." He decided that, since both the man and himself were favourite sorts of things for Uncle Vernon to complain about, it must be that there was a fundamental difference involved.

So he shook his head and said, "Well no, they're not like us, they're - " he stopped, searching for a word, and could think of only one, " - normal."

"Muggles," the man repeated, as if for clarification, except he said it with such revulsion that again, Harry could tell that this new word was some kind of swear word, an adult one that he probably didn't know because he was too young. He shrugged, not going to disagree that the Dursleys deserved to be called by a swear word or two.

"And you can stand it, to live with them?" the man asked him. Harry was beginning to get a little concerned, because no one had ever been that interested in his life with Dursleys before. But the lack of attention he always got only meant that his relatives could do whatever they wanted. Wasn't it good that someone seemed to care, for once?

"Well, they don't like me much," Harry answered cautiously, but truthfully. The cloaked man snorted.

"It's horrible, a joke, that our kind could be raised by muggles," he said. "Why don't you come with me? We must take you from that rubbish at once. How old are you, seven?"

"Nine," Harry corrected, a little annoyed at the man's low estimate. The man seemed unruffled by his mistake.

"Nine. You can become my apprentice. I have just lost the last," he offered. Harry blinked.

"Apprentice?" he asked, finding the word unfamiliar.

The man seemed to misinterpret his question, however, because he answered, "I am an enchanter. A good profession. And there's the other thing too, but we can discuss that later." The last thing was almost muttered, as if the man were talking to himself.

Harry stared at him, more confused than before. What other thing? What was an enchanter? But he did not voice any of his questions, because there was one thing that stood out, and it was that this man, who had been nicer to him than he ever remembered any adult being, had just offered to take him away from the Dursleys. Forever, by the sound of it.

"Okay," Harry said, mind racing with wonderful thoughts of leaving Privet Drive. No more Dudley or Dudley's friends, no more cooking delicious-smelling food that he wasn't even allowed to eat, no more living inside a cupboard. Because Harry wasn't dumb; he knew that other kids did not live in cupboards. Dudley was a prime example of that.

"Very good. May I hold your hand? We need it to apparate," the man said. Just like that, he extended his hand, and Harry grasped it happily. This time, there was no weird flash of light or anything. "Yes, very good," the man repeated.

They disappeared.

* * *

Author Note: Kids are dumb. Maybe not that dumb, on average, but if, at fifteen, Harry was gullible enough to go after Sirius after a vision from his nemesis Voldemort, then I think he'd be gullible enough at nine to take the hand of a nice stranger.

Like, dislike? Do tell. This story was randomly started on a whim. I hope the OC does not become too obnoxious. I tried to make him reasonable, but that's what every author says. Warn me if it approaches Mary Sue range. I attempted to simulate the speech pattern of a German person who is reasonably proficient with English but not fluent, so he favours sentence structures that are correct in both languages when possible. Is that too weird or unrealistic?

***Read This* A note about German language use (Pasted from Chapter 6 A/N):** I only actually write things in German instead of saying "X said this in German" when I mean to annoy you, the reader, into sympathising with Harry for being plunged suddenly into a place where he is surrounded by a language he does not understand. While I often do not explicitly write the literal translation anywhere, because I find that inelegant, there is no need to stop reading and look up the translation, because I will always _implicitly_ confer the same information immediately afterward in the same paragraph. Know that you aren't missing anything important. If you have the compulsive need to know exactly what every word means, I recommend you learn the language.


	2. Fool

Harry felt the world constrict around him, like he was being shoved with great force up a very narrow tube, and then the sensation ended abruptly as the world exploded into bright orange light. He barely had the chance to realise that he was staring straight into a street lamp when the feeling came right back and he had to fight not to choke.

They emerged in a starlit alleyway between two dusty brick buildings. The unpleasant reek of decaying rubbish wafted up Harry's nostrils as he inhaled deeply and rapidly. He wanted to hold his breath, but his body wouldn't allow it, deprived of air as it was, so he was forced to take in the nauseating smell. It made trying not to puke twice as hard, but somehow, Harry managed as he swallowed convulsively.

He turned to the cloaked man to ask what that had been and where they were now, because there was just no way that the horrible thing had been normal, but the man was not even looking at him. Harry tugged at the hand holding him, but the grip remained vice-like and the man's attention remained diverted as he muttered under his breath.

Something rough was pressed against his occupied hand, and Harry glanced down to see a length of rope brushing his thumb. That was all he could process before he felt himself launch into the air, doubling over as something dragged him along like there was a hook behind his navel. A myriad of dizzying colours swirled around him, and he had to shut his eyes to keep from projectile vomiting. Fortunately, the turbulence was not as bad with closed eyes, and he only felt like he was bobbing gently in the wind.

Were they flying? What was this? It was a bit too much for Harry's mind to process, and he was so confused that the concept of mere confusion no longer covered the situation. He had about a minute of being pulled along by that funny hook-like feeling and keeping his eyes screwed shut before the almost pleasant journey ended and he was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground, face first.

Groaning and rubbing at his bruised jaw, Harry opened his eyes and pushed himself off the floor. The cloaked man was beside him, blocking most of the view, but Harry could see that they had landed inside a small room with stained wood floors and mottled white walls. There wasn't much furniture in the room, just an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair, a short filing cabinet, and a couple of cushions littered about. The roof was heavily slanted, leading Harry to believe that they were in an attic of some sort. For some reason, there was a large, slanted fireplace against one wall that looked completely incongruous with the rest of the room.

But first things came first. "What _was_ that?" Harry demanded, once he felt less like throwing up. His stomach was still churning, but at least it did not seem as eager to leap out of his mouth as it did a moment ago.

"Two times apparition and then portkey. Safety precaution," the man said, as if something other than complete nonsense had just come out of his mouth. Harry wanted to ask what the heck a portkey was, but obviously it was exactly the thing that had just happened, the minute-long adventure of being dragged along by his spine. Though it was an appropriate answer to his question, Harry also found it supremely unenlightening.

The cloaked man left Harry there on the ground, moving to the filing cabinet and pulling out the second drawer. He had to stoop down to reach it, and shuffled around a bit before he came out with a sheaf of papers. He came back and motioned for Harry to get up, which he did. It just occurred to him that he had no idea where he was, what was going on, or even what the man's name was.

Harry felt a little stupid now, and a tinge of fear crept into his heart. He kept it at bay, telling himself that nothing actually bad had happened yet. And there were things he could do, questions he could ask, to fix all that.

"What's your name?" he asked, deciding to start with the basics. The cloaked man made a little amused sound.

"Joachim Petri, but you will address me as Master, if you must," he said. "And what is your name, Apprentice?"

Harry was still not entirely sure what that word meant, but he replied dutifully, "Harry Potter, sir." In this room now instead of in the middle of the play park, Harry got the sense that this man was to be respected.

"Harry, then," said Petri, and Harry was not sure he was comfortable with the man using his first name, but he also was not comfortable bringing it up. "I have here the apprenticeship contract. I keep many copies. Otherwise I run out too quickly."

At the time, Harry did not fully grasp the ominousness of this casual admission.

He took the sheaf of unexpectedly thick and yellowy papers from Petri, and saw with consternation that even the writing was all nonsense. Harry was not very good at reading, but even he could tell that none of the words on the page were English.

"Er, I can't read this, sir," he said, feeling a little stupid as he said it despite knowing that he wasn't _meant_ to be able to read something like that.

"Problematic. You must learn German as soon as possible," Petri said. Still, he flicked his hand and suddenly there was a stick in it, and with a flourish he tapped it against the paper.

To Harry's astonishment, the words wriggled slightly and then transformed before his eyes. He looked more closely and could see that he knew most of them now.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Translation charm, obviously," Petri replied, though Harry could not see what was obvious about it. He had more questions, but could sense that Petri was impatient, and he knew from experience that impatient adults were not nice adults, so he tried to read the text instead.

It was all very confusing, even if he knew the words, and before he had even made it through a third of the first page, a feather was forcefully shoved into his hands.

"Just sign it," Petri said, clearly even more impatient than he had been before. "It's a standard apprenticeship contract. No tricks." As he spoke, he pulled the papers from Harry, shuffled them so that the bottom page was on top, and handed it back.

Harry took them absently, staring in confusion at the feather in his hand, but he quickly realized that the bottom of it was thin and pointy, so it was probably a fancy pen.

"It's a blood quill," Petri said, gesturing at the feather pen. "You need no other ink."

Feeling trepidation but also pressure from Petri's clear irritation, Harry knelt down, set the papers on the ground, and pressed the nub of the "blood quill" to the line. As he drew the first vertical slash of his name, he gasped and discovered for himself just where the "blood" part of the name had come from.

The red line that sliced like fire into the back of his hand disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Harry would have thought that he had daydreamed it, except that the spot still ached with echoes of the earlier pain.

A vertical stroke glistened on the page in bright red beneath his quill.

The casual prompt of "Go on," from Petri told Harry that this was apparently supposed to happen. Even he knew that there was something wrong with a pen that cut into the back of his hand, but he supposed that since the marks had vanished, it was fine to use. Bracing himself, he quickly wrote down the rest of his name in a sloppy cursive, like he had seen Uncle Vernon do with signatures. A stinging trail carved itself into the back of his hand, but when he inspected it he could see that it had healed perfectly, without even a trace.

"Good," Petri said, finally sounding pleased.

* * *

A/N: Short chapters, but hopefully I will be able to pull off some reasonably quick updates. Please read and review.


	3. Apprentice

As it turned out, life as Master Petri's apprentice was only a slight upgrade from life at the Dursleys. If the Dursleys had treated Harry like a servant, then Master Petri treated him like a glorified servant. In particular, Harry still had to cook, and more often than not, he still did not get to eat what he made. Instead of sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs, he slept in Master Petri's closet, because the house only had one bedroom, and the attic was for receiving "special" clients.

Right after he signed the contract, Master Petri had forced him to hold an orb that was enchanted to glow a garish red if he lied and started interrogating him about his life. Most of it turned out to be about the Dursleys, and though Harry found them uncomfortable to talk about, it wasn't as though he had had a choice. This topic had suitably distracted Master Petri from whatever else he had wanted to ask, as the man had worked himself into a rage, thoroughly denouncing the Dursleys as muggle scum. He had then proceeded to treat Harry in much the same way, though Harry still found Master Petri a sight more tolerable than his relatives. At least they weren't related.

Somehow, though Harry was not sure how, he had managed to completely gloss over the fact that he had had no idea that magic existed before his first meeting with Master Petri. The man was still under the impression that Harry's parents were a witch and wizard, and Master Petri was so adamant about how mudbloods were useless for everything except fuel for "special" rituals that Harry would do anything to keep it that way.

Actually, for the first week, Harry had been worried that he would be the next to die in the attic for one of Master Petri's "special" orders, because Harry clearly was as muggle as they came, but after an incident in which he lost his temper and set Master Petri's robes on fire, he had thankfully become convinced otherwise.

Instead of getting angry and cursing him, Master Petri had been delighted at this development and had declared that Harry was ready to start the "other thing" the next day. Which was today.

Master Petri was usually pretty straightforward, but on this subject he would always say "special" or "other" and completely skirt around the topic. Still, Harry had enough of an idea of what the "other thing" was to feel uncomfortable, namely that it involved the attic, mudbloods, and blood, the possible results of which did not take too much imagination to guess at.

"I am enchanter in the day, and in the evening I work on the other thing. You are too young for enchanting, so I will first teach you about the other," Master Petri said, ushering Harry up the trapdoor of the attic. The master then repeated the sentence in German, and Harry did his best to try to distinguish all the sounds.

He had two magical things to help him learn a completely new language: a special potion, and a glass ball filled with smoke called a remembrall. It was one of the many enchanted items produced by his teacher, and the smoke inside it turned different colours depending on his state of mind. It was also supposed to slowly improve his memory, though he was still not sure about that part actually being true.

Master Petri was merciless, and expected Harry to remember sentences after the first time he heard them. If Harry could not understand something that Master Petri thought he could, Harry would promptly be hit by the lashing curse, which was a horrible invention that burned like strong whip strokes but left no marks. It was Master Petri's favourite punishment for light infractions. Harry didn't want to know what the punishment for heavy infractions was.

Master Petri had said that, in this business, one needed to know English, German, Russian, and Norwegian at the minimum. Harry was not looking forward to learning even more languages, at least not using Master Petri's questionable methods.

The moment Harry pushed himself through the hole in the attic floor, he had to gape at the completely new look of the place.

For one, it was about four times as big as it had been before. The fireplace was no longer crooked, and there were actual chairs and tables around, including several long worktables. The walls were covered in cabinets of all shapes, colours, and sizes, and there was large, square patch of stone floor in the centre of the room.

Catching his amazed look, Master Petri explained, "I have keyed you to the wards." Then Harry had to scramble to pay attention to note the translation of the sentence. Then he realized that he was as confused as ever, but that this was definitely some magic thing. He was probably supposed to know about it already, so he kept his mouth shut and nodded as if he understood.

Master Petri beckoned for him to follow, so Harry went with him to the far end of the room, where there was a row of cabinets in a light-coloured wood. The master opened up the biggest door and Harry was greeted with the sight of rows and rows of clear crystal phials, each filled up with a half-opaque red liquid. Harry had the horrible idea that he knew exactly what it was.

"Drachenblut, Tierblut, Muggelblut, Zaubererblut," Master Petri recited, as he pointed to each shelf, confirming Harry's suspicions. He looked up at the first row with the dragon blood, which was the smallest, with only five little phials. He was not surprised, honestly, that dragons existed, though he hoped they were what he thought they were (giant, fire-breathing, winged lizards). Then he glanced down to the biggest middle shelves of animal and muggle blood. The amount of muggle blood stored up in those large flasks made Harry feel a little sick. Down below, again in smaller quantities, was the wizard blood on a vial rack. Each had a handwritten label stuck to it, though the words were too small for him to read from that distance.

"What are these for, sir?" Harry asked, feeling that it was a safe question.

"For dynamic enchantments, one must use blood to preserve the enchantment but not lock it. The dragon blood is best for this purpose, but it is expensive." The face that Master Petri made at the word, "expensive," was a little funny and deepened all of his wrinkles, making him look ancient. Harry still had no idea how old the man was. Usually he looked approximately middle-aged, with dark brown hair peppered with steel grey and light lines around his mouth and on his forehead, but it was impossible to make a confident guess.

"The rest?" Harry prompted. Master Petri's hand whipped out and decked him on the side of his head. Harry almost expected it and flinched back with the motion so that it didn't knock him silly.

"Don't interrupt." Master Petri repeated the explanation in German, slowly enough that Harry could pick out the main words, and then continued, "Animal and muggle blood are cheap to get, but make cheap quality. Wizard blood is better for special types of enchantment. We use it today."

Harry remembered that he was going to learn about the special, other thing today. He felt a little trepidation as he saw Master Petri reach out and select one of the vials in the middle of the rack. He handed it to Harry, who took it with a little surprise and turned it to read the label. It was someone's full name. Presumably the blood had belonged to that person.

"Why can I learn this, when I'm too young for normal enchantment?" Harry asked. He winced as the question came out, because it sounded impertinent, but fortunately, Master Petri did not seem to notice.

"Static enchantment is simple and requires much power, which you do not yet have. Special dynamic enchantment has more preparation, so you may assist," he explained. Harry nodded, satisfied, though not yet convinced that it would be a good experience.

A moment later, his fears were confirmed as Master Petri called out, "Rosenkol!"

A small, wrinkled monstrosity clad in a ragged white sheet like a toga appeared with a piercing crack.

Later, Harry would marvel at the fact that a house elf had been named a misspelled version of a Brussel sprout. At the moment, though, he knew neither what a house elf nor Rosenkohl was, and so was simply shocked out of his mind.

With a yelp, he leaped backward, only keeping his hold on the vial in his hand by some miracle. Harry wanted to demand an explanation, but Master Petri was clearly unsurprised and Harry had retained enough wits to see that this was something he was supposed to know about. He hated the nervous feeling that came up whenever that happened. What if he had to say something about it before Master Petri had revealed enough information? Harry forced himself to take some slow breaths. He would worry about that when it came to it.

Master Petri barked something at the thing that was apparently named Rosenkol and it gave a familiar exclamation of, "Jawohl!" before it vanished with the same sound of displacing air that had heralded its arrival.

"The house elf is getting the materials, and then we begin," Master Petri said, sending relief flooding through Harry. So the thing was a house elf, whatever that was. Harry did not particularly care now that he had the right word for it.

He was less relieved when Rosenkol returned with the "materials."

It was a corpse. A human corpse. Harry had to cover his face with his hands to push back his reflex desire to retch.

Master Petri saw his reaction and laughed. He actually laughed. Harry felt even more ill. Even after spending some time with the man and guessing at the kind of things he did, Harry had not quite internalized the fact that Master Petri was not a nice person by any definition. For the first time, he really felt afraid of the man – not the situation, but the man himself – and Master Petri was not even doing anything to _Harry_ or even threatening to do anything.

The corpse was just too much.

"Ach, die Jugend," Master Petri murmured almost fondly under his breath, still chuckling a little. Harry didn't think that his youth had anything to do with his revulsion for the dead body, but was not exactly in a position to make a comment.

Master Petri stepped closer and patted Harry on the shoulder, which did nothing to reassure him. The master snatched the vial of wizard's blood out of Harry's grasp and shot him a small smile. Harry was sure that this was the most cheerful he had ever seen Master Petri, which was problematic in many ways.

"Don't worry, Harry. The first time is hard, so I will do it and you can simply watch, okay?" Master Petri suggested. Harry nodded numbly.

So he watched. He stood there, unable to say or do anything, as Master Petri tapped the vial with his wand, vanishing the stopper. The man retrieved a thin paintbrush from the worktable, cast some kind of spell on it, and then dipped it into the blood and began painting all sorts of patterns on the corpse. When he was finished, the vial of blood was about half empty.

"These are the guide paths for the spells," Master Petri explained. "Not necessary, but because I work with the blood, it is much easier first to prepare. Do you remember why I use the blood?"

Harry was startled out of his stupor by the question. Eager not to ruin Master Petri's good mood and end up having to go any nearer to the corpse, he answered quickly, "Dynamic enchantment uses blood so that it isn't, er, locked."

Master Petri nodded. "Good. That means that the spells can to spread to other targets until they do not have anymore power. Also, I use the client's blood so that the spells can be controlled by him."

The general explanation done, Master Petri began casting, moving his wand precisely along the pre-drawn lines and muttering under his breath. When he finished an entire section of marks, all on the right side, he turned and proceeded to tell Harry the function.

"These are spells for moving and controlling movement. The other side is to make it stable. I enchant here an inferi seed. Do you know what that is?"

Since Master Petri had asked, Harry figured it was safe to not know. "No, sir," he replied, shaking his head.

"An inferius is a corpse that walks. To make a group of inferi, one requires an inferi seed to give the enchantment to the other corpses. Therefore one does not need to enchant every corpse," Master Petri explained. Harry's eyes darted back to the corpse, and he felt a shudder of dread at the thought of it moving on its own, despite being dead. "A very expensive but simple order," Master Petri added, rubbing his hands together and rolling his wand between his palms.

With that, he turned back to the soon-to-be-walking corpse and continued casting.

When he finished and the body raised a trembling hand and began pushing itself to its feet, it took every ounce of courage Harry had to keep himself from turning around and running. Master Petri had control of it, he reminded himself. Well, he didn't know that for sure, but it seemed like an obvious assumption.

Indeed, besides standing up, the corpse only shambled around in a circle and made some clawing motions at the air before stopping as Master Petri gave an approving nod. He flicked his wand and it collapsed, crumpling to the ground like the dead body it was supposed to be.

Then Master Petri picked up the vial of wizard blood, reached into the drawer of his worktable for an empty vial, and transferred the contents of the first.

"What are you doing, sir?" Harry asked, his curiosity returned now that the corpse was showing no further signs of movement.

Master Petri smiled again at him, and Harry thought he had grown a little immune to the unsettling effect of it. "Ah yes, here is a very important business advice," he began, "swear right oaths. I have sworn: I will not use this vial of blood for any purpose other than the one stated by the client. After completing the product, I will destroy this vial of blood."

The last part was spoken in clean English with very little trace of Master Petri's usual accent.

Harry glanced askance at the healthy volume of blood in the new vial. It certainly did not look destroyed to him

"The vial of blood certainly cannot exist without vial and blood, right?" Master Petri said cheerfully. He set the used vial on his work table and vanished it with a few flicks of his wand.

Harry admitted to being a little impressed. After all, this was exactly the sort of thing he had done at the Dursleys when they told him to "get rid of" Dudley's old things, except on a much more serious scale.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has been reading this story! I hope you continue to read, enjoy, and review.

To IrishDancer: Your question about the contract's validity will be answered in the next chapter.


	4. Assistant

Master Petri, Harry soon found out, was full of interesting "business advice" whenever he was in a good mood. After teaching Harry the basics of "intimidate, accommodate, and adapt," which took a few months of practice, he had put Harry up to attending the downstairs enchantment shop during the day. He had also finally got Harry a wand, which really pleased Harry, even if he still did not like Master Petri one bit.

Though Harry still could not do any real spells, he had learned how to push some magic through the wand to create a small shower of sparks. According to Master Petri, that was enough to activate the intruder wards on the shop if anyone came in and tried to do something unsavoury.

The wand had not "chosen" Harry, but Master Petri explained that it would work for him because it had belonged to Master Petri first, and then he had given Harry permission to use it. Harry would get his own wand after he was freed from the apprenticeship, which, he thought dismally, might be many, many years in the future, assuming he did not die trying.

It was not exactly a dangerous occupation to be an enchanter's apprentice. Enchantment was just a permanent version of charms, and according to the introductory books Harry had been given, the majority of charms were harmless and helpful. When Master Petri had reviewed the material with him later, he had scoffed disdainfully and then dumped a giant tome about illegal, dark charms in Harry's lap. Still, it remained the case that charms mistakes were not as deadly as other kinds of mistakes, and were usually easily reversed by the master.

The "other thing," however, was another story. Harry had thought at first that the term just referred to the illegal enchantments that Master Petri did discreetly on the side, but after some time spent reluctantly participating in the preparation of "materials," Harry could only conclude that, while the art had something to do with enchantment, it should really be considered a separate subject.

Master Petri preferred to teach Harry about the "other thing" orally, and through practice, never assigning any written tests but simply quizzing him as they worked. Thus it was a long time before Harry finally received a book about it, and by that time, he had already got over his queasiness for corpses and blood. It had taken a lot of patience, and only when Master Petri's tolerance had run thin and he had started cursing Harry in earnest, had Harry finally put in the effort to accept his situation.

Because there was no way out, and it would be better for Harry to realise that and adapt. Once he had signed the apprenticeship contract in blood, his life essentially belonged to Master Petri. As long as Master Petri continued to seriously teach him about his craft, Harry had no right to complain or leave, whatever else the man did to him or demanded of him. Harry had known nothing at the time, of course, but even the fact that he was a minor was of no help because he had signed in blood, and blood contracts were magically binding. Magic did not care about age.

In the wizarding world, blood was a powerful thing. And even though the Master Enchanter Joachim Petri was just another craft-wizard with a moderately successful little shop, the Master Necromancer was a dangerous wizard who had secreted away the blood of dozens of other dark wizards – in other words, who had some coercive power over dozens of dark wizards, even if they did not know it.

Necromancy. That thing was Master Petri's real craft, the "other thing," the highly illegal and unsafe thing that had lost him three apprentices before Harry. Master Petri always took in the unwanted sort, the bastard sons and the orphans, and when they died they were just as unwanted as when they lived, so no one asked any funny questions.

But even in death, they were not free. If anything, dying just took away any rights they might have had left over, and turned them from abused apprentices into abused slaves. Because they had died while bound by contract to Master Petri, he practically had their departed souls at his beck and call, and could even stuff them temporarily into bodies when he pleased. They were only pale shadows of their original selves, Harry was told, but though they were reserved and depressed, they could still follow orders.

Several times now, Harry had met Ulrich, the first apprentice, and Aleksandra, the third. Ulrich's spirit had informed him in a dull, morose rasp that the second apprentice, Horst, had been devoured by a dementor, and was no longer with them.

Naturally, Harry had wanted to know what a dementor was, and had then been plagued with nightmares for a week when Master Petri had explained in detail and then hinted that Harry would later have to spend an entire month living in the midst of the soul-sucking fiends to pass a test. Both Ulrich and Aleksandra had died before reaching this point, and the aforementioned Horst had experienced a fate worse than death during it, so Harry was not that optimistic about his chances for success, especially as he was by far the youngest apprentice Master Petri had ever had.

But that did not mean he would give up. Giving up was a foreign concept to him. When everything else was gone, his own willpower was the only thing that was left, and he couldn't let that be taken away from him.

And besides, he did not want to die and become downgraded to Master Petri's servant instead of his apprentice. For now, Harry had some privilege, and the worst of the unsavoury necromancy preparations was left to the dead ex-apprentices and the weird house elf, Rosenkol.

In a book about magical creatures, which Harry had been forced to read after he had made the unforgivable mistake of getting grindylow and kelpie blood confused, Harry had learned that house elves were supposed to be helpful, servile creatures who did all the house work and liked being enslaved. This sounded like the image Master Petri had of a model apprentice, which was a little worrying, but more importantly, it sounded nothing like Rosenkol.

First of all, he even looked weird, compared to the pictures of normal elves that Harry had seen. Rosenkol was apparently tall for an elf, though that was not saying much, as he stood at about a meter and was still shorter than Harry. He always wore a torn-off piece of a funeral shroud, though he had different outfits for each day of the week. The reason he had so much variety to choose from was that his primary purpose was grave-robbing. Rosenkol's bulging, perpetually wide eyes were coloured a dull, deep black. Harry would have thought that Rosenkol himself was a corpse that Master Petri had put back together had he not seen for himself that the elf lived and breathed.

And then there was the personality. If there was anything servile about Rosenkol, it wasn't naturally so. He bowed and scraped to Master Petri, and always spoke to him with awed reverence, but he was curt and even snooty with anyone else. Rosenkol definitely thought himself above Harry, and given the kind of magic he had seen the elf do, Harry could only reluctantly agree. It probably wouldn't be anything impressive for an adult wizard, but Harry was limited to uncontrollable effects coming out only when he was under great duress, while Rosenkol could charm and apparate with a snap of his fingers.

Also, Rosenkol had no idea how to cook, so that kind of thing was left to Harry, as if _Harry_ were the house elf. Harry did not know whether it made it better or worse that Master Petri was unbelievably miserly, and sometimes had them subsisting on cheap nutritive potions for weeks without seeing a sliver of real food. Harry felt his stomach churn just thinking about it.

The tinkling of the unnecessarily cheerful bell enchantment on the door pulled Harry from his spiral of depressive thoughts. It was nearing closing time, which meant that the majority of the day's customers had already come through, so the new entrance was unexpected. Harry glanced up and saw an unfamiliar, rich-looking blond wizard accompanied by a boy around Harry's age, probably his son. The man seemed taken aback at the sight of Harry, and Harry remembered that it was not so common for young children to be apprentices. Actually, most children his age were still playing happily at home, ignorant of even the basics of magic theory. Harry would have thought himself lucky, except that his master was actually a horrible person who blithely exploited and ruined the lives of small children, among other unspeakable deeds.

Putting his limited German to the test, Harry said, uncertainly, "Ich bin der Lehrling des Herrn Petris,"explaining that he was the apprentice of Master Petri. He hoped that the possessive actually had that last "s" at the end. Then he used the stock, _"May I help you?"_ phrase that he had been taught, "Darf ich Ihnen behilflich sein?"

As soon as the words left his mouth automatically, his mind raced wildly as he tried to remember if he had used the right formality. From the grammar books that Master Petri had finally provided him, Harry knew that modern German only had two levels of address, formal and informal, which was easy enough. Unfortunately, Master Petri insisted that he and Harry address each other using a more archaic, traditional form that Harry termed ultra-formal, which just made everything else confusing.

All his worrying turned out to be completely unnecessary, however, because the first words out of the aristocratic blond's mouth were, "Pardon me, do you speak English?"

Harry gave a relieved little smile and nodded. "Of course, sir. How may I help you then? I'm the apprentice of the Master Enchanter here."

Expectedly, the man looked surprised at that, but answered, "May I see your master, then? I was told he made normalized fairy powder here, for the Draught of Acuity."

Harry recognised the key-phrase for the "other thing" at once. That meant that this man was a returning client, though one that Harry had never met before. According to Master Petri, it was complete nonsense: anyone who knew a lick about potion-making and enchanted objects knew that normalized _anything_ would at best lose its potency and at worst explode violently if put in contact with a still-brewing potion. Harry took his word for it.

Usually, he would tell the customer off for being daft and then direct them through the floo, writing down what was ostensibly the floo address of an apothecary on a special slip. The charmed parchment would actually show the client the floo address of Master Petri's necromancy workshop (the attic), while appearing to anyone else as the address for the apothecary in the next alley. This process was necessary every time because Master Petri's paranoia had made him enchant his fireplace to wipe the memory of the address from anyone who went through it. Harry was surprised that that was the only thing the fireplace did, but perhaps there were more safeguards that he did not know about.

The purpose of the key-phrase and the charmed paper was to enable the "special business" to be done in broad daylight, right in the middle of a shop full of customers looking at harmless, legal enchantments. Since no one else was in the shop, Harry just gave up the pretence and nodded at the man without saying anything, scribbling down the appropriate address.

He handed over the slip of parchment, glancing at the boy beside the client as he did so. "He will be right with you, sir, in the usual place. Would you like to leave your son here while you deal with Master Petri?" He tried to give the man a meaningful look, and worried that he had only succeeded in appearing constipated. A necromancer's workshop was hardly a place for a boy of nine, unless that boy was an unwanted orphan who was the victim of ruthless exploitation. Harry doubted the Dursleys had even noticed his disappearance.

The man looked a little amused, in a sneering, pureblood way, but nodded. "That would be preferable, thank you."

Harry nodded back and watched as the man gave a parting, "Behave, Draco," to his son before he tossed a handful of powder in the fire and was whirled away by the roaring green flames.

"Hi, I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," said the boy. "Are you really learning magic already?"

"Sort of," Harry admitted, not looking forward to hedging around the concept of necromancy. How could he explain that he knew how to prepare a corpse to become an inferius, or how to cause pain to ghosts, but not how to do a simple levitation charm? Master Petri had said that Harry was still too young even for that, and should stick to theory and wandless magic for now, in order to avoid stunting the growth of his magical flow. Heavy use of a wand anchored the magical flow through a body, amplifying it and making it easier to control, but also stopping it from growing or shrinking as much. In most people, the flow peaked a bit after age ten, which was why most magical schooling began at eleven.

Harry had to admit that Master Petri was very knowledgeable, even if he was also a sadistic madman. And despite having to do servant-like tasks for Master Petri, Harry _was_ actually learning a lot about magic, which was an improvement over having to do servant-like things for free.

"What do you mean sort of? And what's your name?" Malfoy pressed, which made Harry realize that he had rudely neglected to introduce himself.

"Er, Harry Potter," he replied. To his surprise, Malfoy's eyes widened and he looked like he would have gaped, had his breeding not been as good.

"_The_ Harry Potter?" Malfoy asked.

"I'm sorry, what?" Harry said dumbly. Malfoy's tone had implied that there was some kind of famous person also named Harry Potter, and that this celebrity was probably around Harry's age. There was no way that Harry was famous though, so that was a weird coincidence.

"You know, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, who defeated You-Know-Who!" Malfoy said, as if all of that were obvious. Harry was blown away by the number of hyphenated things in that one sentence.

"I don't think I know what you're talking about," he admitted. He thought of something. "Is it a British thing?"

At this, Draco Malfoy seemed to remember that he was in a foreign country. "Oh, well, yes. You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord – we don't say his name – was defeated by a baby named Harry Potter. He should be our age now. But of course it can't be you. He's English too, obviously."

Harry decided not to mention the fact that, up to a few months ago, he had been living in English suburbia in complete ignorance of magic. How common was the name Harry Potter? Muggle-Harry would have said very, but given the sorts of names that wizards tended to have, wizard-Harry was not so sure.

"Right," was all Harry said. There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"So, do you like flying?" Malfoy asked him then with a complete change of subject. Harry shrugged slowly, trying his best not to react strangely. Was Malfoy talking about aeroplanes? Somehow, Harry doubted it, from the way the blond boy spoke of it like a recreational activity. Harry wouldn't put it past wizards at all to be able to cast a flying spell for fun. Wasn't that just like levitating oneself?

"I don't know, I haven't tried it," he answered honestly, after a pause. When Malfoy looked horrified by the very possibility, Harry added, hoping that he had not mucked up something major, "Master Petri doesn't let me out much."

Fortunately, Malfoy looked somewhat appeased by this. It was true anyway that Harry had had very little free time ever since the start of his apprenticeship. Since Harry had never been one to have much opportunity to putter around with toys, the way Master Petri occupied every hour of his day with lessons or servant work did not bother him too much. However, he supposed that normal children had very different schedules.

"You really must try it some time," Malfoy said. "It's the best thing in the world."

With that kind of recommendation, Harry could only awkwardly nod and say, "I will if I get the chance."

"So what do you do all the time then?" Malfoy asked him.

"Read," Harry said succinctly and vaguely. Before Malfoy could think of more difficult questions to ask, the fireplace flared green and Malfoy Senior appeared, swinging his snake-head cane.

"Come along, Draco," the man said, before pausing to give Harry a nod. Then he took his son's hand, and swept around gracefully to step outside, ignoring Draco's whinging protests. As soon as they cleared the wards, they disappeared.

Harry was left blinking at how quickly the entire transaction seemed to have gone. He twisted around as another pillar of green fire roared from the previously empty grate and revealed Master Petri there.

"Close the shop. Leave everything. We have a new project from Mister Malfoy," Master Petri said in German. There was barely-concealed excitement leaking through in his voice and a pinched expression of glee on his face.

"How much?" Harry asked in the same language, a little dryly. He took out his wand and prodded one of the enchanted figurines on the counter, which would take care of the shop. The entire building locked down and the brightly glowing sign on the display window up front changed to: "GESCHLOSSEN."

"Fifty-thousand galleons," Master Petri exclaimed in ecstasy. Even while Harry laughed internally at the expression on the man's face, he had to admit that Master Petri had truly been offered a small fortune to do whatever it was. Perhaps after this, Master Petri would get a little more generous, though Harry doubted it as soon as he had the thought.

"What is it then?" Harry asked, once it seemed like Master Petri had calmed down a little.

"Dangerous," he said, and then added, in English, "We must dig up a very volatile spirit and bind it if possible. First we need to make preparations for you. I do not want you to die yet."

Harry did not know whether he should find this declaration heartwarming. He decided to wait for the ulterior motive to show itself first.

"What kinds of preparations?" he inquired.

"The second step to understanding the Other," Master Petri began, and this time, Harry could hear the emphasis on that word, "You must make a horcrux."

* * *

A/N: :D? Yes, this story may sometimes become troll. I'm a little sorry. It's far too for-fun and not enough serious, so though I won't deliberately make bad plot, I haven't put in any of the usual plot-ironing effort, so whatever random that comes into my head will happen. Oops.


	5. Victim

"I will perform the horcrux ritual for you, because it is very complex," Master Petri told Harry as he reclined on his wooden chair. The cheap, knobbly thing looked like it would stab the seated person in nine different places, but was actually enchanted to have perfect support for whomever sat in it. Harry got to sit on the hard, decidedly non-enchanted floor. "But," Master Petri continued, "There is one thing you must do yourself, which is split your soul."

That sounded a little alarming to Harry, so he asked obligingly, "How do you do that, sir?"

"You commit an unspeakable act, and accept it. Murder is the usual," Master Petri explained coolly. Harry stared, not completely shocked, for half of the things that came out of Master Petri's mouth were at about an equal level of horribleness. Still, this was plainly outrageous.

Harry took a breath, gathered up his courage, and then said, "I can't do that." He felt the urge to look away as soon as he had said it, but when he caught Master Petri's dark eyes, decided to hold that gaze defiantly.

To his surprise, Master Petri did not curse him or hit him or any of the usual things he did when Harry disobeyed or contradicted him. Instead, he simply said, levelly, "I know that. Later we can improve that weakness. For now, there are other acts. For you I believe that killing a unicorn is right."

To hear "right" and something as awful-sounding as "killing a unicorn" in the same sentence made Harry's stomach churn, but a guilty part of himself could not help admitting that it sounded a sight better than murdering a human.

"Are unicorns sentient?" Harry asked. He had to know this first.

Master Petri smiled his leering smile. "No," was the reply, but Harry realised that he had no way of confirming the truth value of that response. Master Petri had every reason to lie, if it were not in fact true, so the question and its answer had been effectively useless.

As if reading his mind, Master Petri extended his wand and gave it a sharp flick, summoning a thin book from one of the shelves in the back of the workshop, behind the filing drawers. He tossed it to Harry, who caught it reflexively and looked down. _Licht des Einhorns_, read the title. _Light of the Unicorn._

Hesitantly, Harry looked back up at Master Petri to determine what he should do next. He wanted to refuse in principle to do anything that could be called "unspeakable," but that was not an option. Master Petri would probably be willing to massacre a million children for fifty-thousand galleons. Actually, Harry would bet that Master Petri would have no problems doing something like that just for fun. It wasn't a nice thought, especially since it could actually be true. In any case, the man would have no compunctions at all about forcing Harry, perhaps by altering his mind or something else awful.

The book in his hands. . . Master Petri had given Harry a choice, which was already more generous than usual. It would be foolish not to consider it, at least.

"I'll read the book, and then decide," Harry said, sounding more confident than he felt.

Something strange glinted in Master Petri's eye, and Harry did not have enough time to even imagine what it could possibly be before it hit him.

"_Crucio!_" The incantation was spoken forcefully, unlike any of Master Petri's other spells. The red light flashed. Harry screamed before he felt anything.

It crawled inside him, a surge of terrible, searing fire, and his lungs and mouth were filled up with sand and it hurt to scream and he screamed from the hurt but now he had no surface anymore, there was too much to comprehend, it was just like unconsciousness, this could not be consciousness it could not exist, not so inexorable and inescapably grasping, a mess of strangling bewilderment, and -

It stopped, and the eternal moment shattered and faded away so that even his chasing grasp could no longer catch it. Harry woke up as if from a dream, or he resurfaced from the bottom of a shallow pool. He felt light, and heavy. His head and his body were at odds. He licked his lips and tested himself.

There was no sand, and no fire. He felt fine, and the way he felt fine was the worst perversion in the world. Master Petri was standing now, a pillar of darkness above him. Harry looked up at Master Petri's eyes, saw the light of joy, the crescent glint of pleasure, and felt hate for an infinitesimal moment. Then it disappeared, lost to the same place as the pain.

Master Petri collected himself. Harry was already collected, lying on his back, somehow having turned around in all his convulsing. He did not really care to move. He asked _why,_ but it was only silently.

Master Petri answered: "That is another method. It is a little bit unreliable. One never knows which one shatters first. Mind or soul?"

Somehow, when Master Petri took the time to repeat his sentence casually in German, everything began to seem surreal. Harry shuddered, his whole body giving one violent shake.

A million thoughts began to race through his head, chains of realisation and horror. There was the thought, horcrux. Splitting the soul. Murder. Torture.

"Using the curse," Harry said, the twinge of rawness in his throat surprising him. He remembered that he had been screaming, and that the screaming had been real. "Does that work too?"

His question drew a laugh from Master Petri. That wasn't right. Harry had not wanted to make the man laugh.

"It might. Only if one cannot take it back," was the reply. Harry wondered what that even meant. How could anyone ever take something back, once it was done? He remembered what Master Petri said a few moments ago about shattering. He thought he understood, maybe.

"How long was I. . . under?" he asked.

"Five seconds," Master Petri replied.

Harry felt cold. Had it really been five seconds? Only five seconds? The world seemed to loom over him, darker and greater. Master Petri was unfathomably tall. Some indeterminate amount of time passed like that, in a hazy confusion.

"Auf!" the man barked suddenly, turning away a little. A command to get up, for Harry had been shamefully lying on the floor for too long. He could see the tip of Master Petri's wand from the corner of his eye, and he did not want to admit it, but lying to himself was no use. He was afraid, and powerless. He rolled over, finding his body only in a little pain from where his bones must have knocked against the hard floor, and got to his feet, though not before picking up the unicorn book that had fallen out of his hands before.

"Der Cruciatus-Fluch," Master Petri began, and Harry's exhausted mind gave a silent scream of protest at having to comprehend these unfamiliar words, "ist ein Fluch, der das Opfer einer unerträglichen Folter unterzieht."

It was a testament to the sort of things that Master Petri dealt with on a day to day basis that Harry knew the word, "Folter," intimately. Torture. It was the only word he really needed to know to understand the purpose of the cruciatus curse. The other words helped a little. "Unbearable torture" was the right phrase, and it completed the concept. Simple pain could be resisted. Pain was not the same thing as torture. What might break one person could be laughed off by another. But no one could bear "unbearable" or mistake "torture."

Knowing that, Harry could not imagine suffering through it again, though he had tasted it just a minute ago. The memory was already distant and dreamlike. Even if he remembered it perfectly it would be meaningless, just a jumble of confusion. The pain was gone, impossible to preserve in a moment. He had only come out of it with a conviction that it could not happen again.

To inflict that feeling on someone else: that would be even worse. Harry did not doubt that it would truly be unspeakable. But even Master Petri could not deserve this unfathomable pain.

Suddenly, without even needing to open the book in his limp hands, Harry knew that it was the only way. He would have to kill a unicorn.

He wanted to throw it away, that useless, pointless book, but he knew that he should at least read it, if only to know what there was to know. He owed his future victim that much.

"I'll do it," Harry said, holding out a book a little to show what he meant. He said it in German, even, to show that he was serious, even if he was incompetent at it.

"In the end, it is just an animal," Master Petri answered, each word sharp and crisp and easy to understand.

_In the end, even people were just animals,_ Harry thought. But he said nothing.

* * *

A/N: Well, there's that. Not very exciting, sorry, except I expanded some on horcrux theory. Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed. Unfortunately, Harry will not be remaining cute and guileless forever; sorry to disappoint some reviewers on that score. He won't suddenly become a raging maniac either, though.


	6. Poacher

As reluctant as Harry was to admit it, Master Petri had been right.

A unicorn really _was_ just an animal. It was a magical animal, certainly, with special magical properties, but was even less intelligent than its non-magical cousin, the horse. It operated almost solely on magic.

People said that the unicorn was a symbol of everything good and pure.

Master Petri said that the unicorn was a symbol of faulty instincts.

Standing next to a pure white mare, softly stroking its bristly fur, and in general feeling like an utter ingrate, Harry could not help agreeing a little with Master Petri. He almost wanted the unicorn to run, or, even better, to kick him to death with its powerful hooves or stab him with that sabre-sharp horn. But it only whickered softly and continued to graze.

Earlier, in a very clinical manner, Master Petri had already explained the precise order of things that he should do in order to very nearly guarantee success.

First, they had arrived in the magical part of the Black Forest. Unicorns needed very high concentrations of magic to survive, so a place like that, apparently infested with every kind of magical creature imaginable, had the most unicorn blessings in the world. As a bonus, it was also in Germany, which meant that there had been no turbulent international portkeys to speak of.

For his part, Master Petri put some rudimentary wards on a clearing and then cast a Patronus Charm before he left Harry alone with the guardian animal, a gleaming silver owl.

Most dark wizards were incapable of casting the Patronus Charm, but Master Petri could, he had explained with some pride, also unabashedly calling himself a dark wizard in the process. Not that Harry hadn't already been certain of his darkness, given the requirements of necromancy. Apparently, Master Petri had been a Master Enchanter long before he had even begun learning the "other thing," and one never forgot how to cast the Patronus Charm after the first time.

Harry wondered what happy memory Master Petri thought of as he cast the spell. Torturing children, perhaps?

At any rate, one of the things the Patronus Charm, which was a magical manifestation of happiness, was useful for was attracting things that liked happiness.

Master Petri had remorselessly told Harry that that meant it would attract both unicorns and dementors. He had let Harry stew in horror for a few more minutes before taking pity and informing him that the Patronus Charm was also simultaneously a defence against dementors, as it would harmlessly reroute their depressing aura and could physically attack them.

Harry had not been too offended at being misled, given the usual level of kindness he expected from the capricious master, and had pretended with as much dignity as he could that it had never happened. Still, standing in the middle of the clearing unarmed and guarded only by a shiny owl made of happy light was a little disconcerting.

The unicorn had not taken too long to show up. While Harry had been waiting, Master Petri had no doubt been scouring the forest for one of the creatures to drive away from its blessing and toward Harry's clearing.

Harry could have killed it minutes ago, but his heart was thudding painfully in his chest and he felt a little ill about the whole thing. As Master Petri had predicted, the unicorn could not sense Harry's miserably weak intent to kill under the overpowering and sympathetic radiance of the Patronus.

The more Harry touched it, the more he realised how horrible it would be to deprive this magnificent beast of life. It was wild, innocent, and untainted.

Hand clenched around the weapon of choice in his pocket, Harry reminded himself of Master Petri's sardonic smile and unflinching wand. The world was not good and pure. The world was not a place for something like a unicorn to exist. What was really good, and really evil? Did the unicorn understand?

It couldn't. It was just a beast with no higher power of reason past instinct. It knew that good was galloping freely through the woods, and bad was pain. This kind of simplicity did not fit into the world of humans.

What was the point of sparing the unicorn's good at the sacrifice of Harry's good? An animal would not understand or appreciate it. The thought sounded selfish and cruel, even unformed inside his head, and he wanted to feel guilty, but even that was not granted him. The guilt did not come. Harry's grasp around the little lump of stone in his pocket tightened so much that the jagged corners dug into his flesh and drew blood.

The unicorn whinnied and shifted a little, no doubt smelling the injury.

The only thing he felt: it was guilt for not feeling guilty. But the natural question, then, was _why_? Why, then, did he think that he should feel guilty at all? Where was the reason?

The reason? Reason? The word chased itself around the empty, unresponsive caverns of his mind. Harry took his hand out of his pocket, though it was unnecessary, and pressed his magic into the black stone, like he had practised with Master Petri over and over again. He needed to see it happen.

There was not much to see to tell him that he had succeeded, except the most obvious thing, which was horrific enough to prove the success of Master Petri's enchantment.

The unicorn, finally sensing the change in Harry, turned tail and tried to bolt. But even as it lifted its hooves, the ethereal grace left it and it crashed down, its legs twisting as it scrambled in vain to balance. The clearing was cast in a sinister darkness – the Patronus had gone out within a second of the Nullifier's activation.

Unicorns needed magic to survive. This, Harry had learned from the unicorn book. They were not magical horses; they were horse-shaped magical creatures. Many of the vital systems inside a unicorn's body ran on ambient magic the way the bodies of other living creatures ran on air. The unicorn itself was magical, and could theoretically sustain itself for up to hours without the ambient magic, but only if the change was gradual, as would happen with a migration through non-magical land.

The Nullifier had a very nearly instantaneous effect. It sucked away all the free-floating magic in the area until it reached its capacity, which was more than enough for this one clearing. The result was a sudden magical vacuum, and the highly magical unicorn's body went into shock. Even Harry felt some kind of visceral weakness from the sudden lack.

Watching the creature collapse and feeling a little numb, Harry continued to act out the plan, unable to process any other thoughts with his mind. He stepped over to the unresponsive unicorn's head and reached for the horn. For a moment, he hoped it would buck forward and perhaps gore him, but the animal did nothing of the sort, only watching blankly. Holding up the now-warm Nullifier, he angled it so that the sharp side was pointing down and then struck the base of the horn. It was a well-known trick to break off a unicorn horn, and used often by poachers and legal harvesters alike. The stab of a horn did a lot of damage, but because of its backward surface ridges, it was difficult to remove if embedded in something, so the attachment was brittle enough that a swing of the head could break it off. A defence mechanism. On a healthy unicorn, the horn would grow back within a day.

Harry took the horn in hand and reversed it. As if it knew what was to come, the unicorn twitched slightly, but its whole body still seemed frozen by the sudden loss of the magic that gave it strength and life.

The horn plunged down.

Viscous silver blood splashed onto Harry's hands and quickly dimmed to a pale blue in the magic-starved environment. Unicorn's blood carried a powerful curse, but the Nullifier would get rid of it as long as none of it went inside Harry's body, where there was magic to fuel it. Still, it felt like something horrible and oppressive had crept inside him, squeezing his insides until finally they shattered under the strain.

He looked down at the weakly shuddering body of the once-magnificent creature. Soon, even the last laboured rise and fall of the great chest stilled. Harry's wide eyes drank in the sight.

He felt nothing.

* * *

A/N: Well, that was fun. Poor Harry.

So, there have been complaints about the use of German. I probably should have put this note in the very first chapter where it happened, but I failed, because I'm lackadaisical. Sorry! Thank you, person who complained, because I would have forgotten entirely otherwise. But here it is. I will also paste it at the beginning now for the benefit of new readers.

***Read This* A really late note about the German:** I only actually write things in German instead of saying "X said this in German" when I mean to annoy you, the reader, into sympathising with Harry for being plunged suddenly into a place where he is surrounded by a language he does not understand. While I often do not explicitly write the literal translation anywhere, because I find that inelegant, there is no need to stop reading and look up the translation, because I will always _implicitly_ confer the same information immediately afterward in the same paragraph. Know that you aren't missing anything important. If you have the compulsive need to know exactly what every word means, I recommend you learn the language. But take heart; there probably won't be any more foreign language sentences ever again in this story, because the more Harry learns, the less need I have to shove non-understanding in anyone's face. I apologise if this feature has brought you distress or hassle.

I purposely did not include footnotes with translations because I did not want anyone to interrupt their reading to go look at them. I'm sorry if this instead caused you to go look up the translation yourself, interrupting things even more. I didn't mean for it to work like that. OTL


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